The Journal - David Herberholzhttp://www.journalmpls.com/tag-topics/david-herberholz
enRecycling up since switch to one-sorthttp://www.journalmpls.com/news/green-digest/recycling-up-since-switch-to-one-sort
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<span class="field-slideshow-caption-text">New, one-sort recycling bins were delivered to participants in a Minneapolis pilot in 2011. All homes had one-sort by June 2013.</span>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Dylan Thomas</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-teaser field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">A shrinking percentage of Minneapolis waste is burned in the HERC incinerator</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>A greater percentage of Minneapolis’ household waste is being recycled rather than incinerated since the switch to one-sort recycling.</p>
<p>From July 2013 to July 2014, the first full year after one-sort went citywide, about 25 percent of waste was recycled while 75 percent was burned in the downtown Hennepin Energy Recovery Center, or HERC. The split was 18 percent recycled to 82 percent incinerated from June 2009 to June 2010, when Minneapolis residents still sorted their recycling into separate bags.</p>
<p>“We’re tracking in the right direction,” said David Herberholz, director of solid waste and recycling, who delivered a report on recycling Tuesday to the City Council’s Transportation and Public Works Committee.</p>
<p>During the first 12 months of citywide one-sort, 28,784 tons of waste were collected for recycling, while 85,863 tons were burned at the HERC waste-to-energy facility. Compared to the final 12 months of citywide multi-sort, that’s a 29 percent increase in recycling by weight and 16 percent decrease in trash sent to the HERC.</p>
<p>“This (one-sort) program is really necessary for the fact that we needed something that was easier for residents to participate in,” Herberholz said.</p>
<p>While the requirement under the old multi-sort system to sort recyclables into separate bags likely discouraged some households from recycling, it trained Minneapolis residents to be scrupulous recyclers. The city’s “residual rate” — the amount of non-recyclable material mistakenly placed in recycling bins — was below 5 percent during the first full year of one sort.</p>
<p>“That speaks very well to the commitment of the residents to have a clean product,” Herberholz said.</p>
<p>It also increases the chances that Waste Management, the city’s recycling provider, will get a good price for the paper, glass, plastic and other materials on the secondary market. The city shares revenue from those sales with Waste Management.</p>
<p>Herberholz said most metro-area recycling facilities switched to one-sort processing systems in recent years. That’s meant processing costs for recyclables are lower than was projected before the launch of one-sort recycling, which saves the city some money. It also confirms the decision to opt for one-sort over a dual-sort scheme, he added.</p>
<p>Herberholz said one-sort was “well-received” by residents, some of who reported recycling more because it was easier. Participation rates, though, vary widely across the city.</p>
<p>The weight of recyclables collected per dwelling unit is highest in a large swath of 10 Southwest Minneapolis neighborhoods stretching from Kenwood down to Fulton and over to Tangletown. They’re significantly lower in CARAG, which borders two high-recycling neighborhoods, and Whittier.</p>
<p>Both of those neighborhoods are in City Council Member Lisa Bender’s Ward 10, and Bender suggested a higher number of multi-family residential buildings might lead to lower participation rates.</p>
<p>The city doesn’t have all the answers, but poor communication between tenants and landlords could be one factor, Heberholz said.</p>
<p>He also noted neighborhoods like Linden Hills, home to some of the most dedicated recyclers in the city, have for years been “pretty active in doing a lot of door-to-door communications and pushing the education.”</p>
<p>“I would expect the numbers to be higher there,” he said.</p>
<p>The city is planning a targeted education and outreach effort to boost recycling rates in neighborhoods were recycling is low. That includes a concentration of low-recycling neighborhoods in City Council Member Blong Yang’s Ward 5.</p>
<p>Yang said he recently went on a waste-hauler ride-along through his ward and was “appalled” at the amount of recyclables put in trash bins, including disposable plastic water bottles.</p>
<p>One-sort has also made collecting recyclables simpler and safer for the city, Herberholz noted in the report.</p>
<p>New recycling collection vehicles have one big compartment instead of multiple smaller compartments for different recyclables. The new trucks are smaller, requiring less space to store in city lots, and just 12 can complete all of the city’s routes, half as many as the 24 multi-sort trucks.</p>
<p>Herberholz said 33 percent of his department’s injuries were recycling related in 2012. That was down to 12 percent in 2014, reducing the cost of worker compensation claims.</p>
<p>City Council Member Cam Gordon (Ward 2) praised the progress, but added that the city still has a long way to go to reach Mayor Betsy Hodges’ zero-waste goal. Noting the amount of waste burned at the HERC between July 2013 and June 2014, he said, “I know we’d like to get to zero waste, and we’d like to have that 85,863 tons down to zero.”</p>
<p> <img src="/sites/default/files/images/articles/10/21/2014/OnesortParticipation.png" alt="" width="316" height="480" class="inline_image" /></p>
<p><em>A map prepared by the Department of Solid Waste and Recycling shows disparities in recycling participation rates. Those neighborhoods shaded darker recycle the most as measured in pounds per dwelling unit.</em></p>
</div></div></div>Tue, 21 Oct 2014 23:09:04 +0000Dylan Thomas23835 at http://www.journalmpls.comhttp://www.journalmpls.com/news/green-digest/recycling-up-since-switch-to-one-sort#commentsMore organics drop-off sites openinghttp://www.journalmpls.com/news/green-digest/more-organics-drop-off-sites-opening
<div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Dylan Thomas</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-teaser field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">By October, the city plans to have six drop-off sites for compostable waste</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>The city opened a third organics recycling drop-off site at Van Cleve Park Sept. 21 and plans to open three more by the end of October.</p>
<p>The drop-off site at Audubon Park in Northeast was scheduled to begin accepting household organics Oct. 7. Drop-off sites at Armatage and Whittier parks in Southwest Minneapolis will open later in October, said Minneapolis Recycling Coordinator Kellie Kish.</p>
<p>Just eight of Minneapolis’ more than 80 neighborhoods have curbside organic waste recycling through a city pilot program. It’s expected that the curbside program will go citywide in 2015, but the drop-off sites give eager household recyclers an option for their organic waste until then.</p>
<p>The first organics drop-off site opened April 26 in Pearl Park. A second opened in early August at the city’s South Transfer Station near where Lake Street runs beneath Hiawatha Avenue.</p>
<p>A survey of Pearl Park drop-off site users showed they were driving or bicycling to that location from 29 different Minneapolis neighborhoods, an indication that there was strong demand for the service in other parts of the city, Kish said.</p>
<p>She said the city doesn’t have solid numbers on just how many people are using the drop-off sites, but noted an email list for the Pearl Park location had 575 individual addresses. When it first opened, it was getting between 40 and 60 visits during any given three-hour period, she added.</p>
<p>Most of those Pearl Park drop-off site users were coming from single-family households, according to a survey of visitors conducted earlier this year. But there were a significant number of apartment dwellers, as well, Kish said, and that has implications for the city’s plans to expand curbside organics pickup beyond the pilot program.</p>
<p>Citywide curbside collection of organic waste would eliminate the need for drop-off sites, except that the city and its contractor for residential recycling services don’t serve large multi-family residential buildings. In some areas with lots of apartment buildings, there may still be demand for a drop-off program even after the expansion of curbside pickup, Kish said.</p>
<p>The city is under pressure from Hennepin County to get that curbside program up and running soon.</p>
<p>In February, the county dropped a longstanding request to burn more trash at its downtown incinerator, the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center. In exchange, it demanded Minneapolis add organics collection to its solid waste and recycling services by the start of 2015.</p>
<p>If the city doesn’t follow through, Hennepin County could withhold the $864,000 per year in state funds for recycling it passes on to Minneapolis.</p>
<p>A city study released in March indicated the program would cost at least $3.5 million per year, adding $17.60 to residents’ monthly solid waste and recycling fees. At the time, Solid Waste and Recycling Director David Herberholz said curbside organic recycling would likely debut as an opt-in program, possibly in the spring or summer.</p>
<p>Participation in the pilot program ranges from about 30 to 50 percent of households in the neighborhoods where it’s offered, according to the city. Kish said participating households recycle roughly 7 to 13 pounds of organics per week.</p>
<p>Whether Minneapolis residents recycle curbside or at a drop-off site, they can send more than just food scraps to the compost heap. Food-soiled paper products, including egg cartons and pizza boxes, are also recyclable. Cotton swabs, dryer lint and Q-tips are among the other items accepted.</p>
<p>It’s recommended residents collect organic waste in a separate container from regular trash using certified compostable bags.</p>
<p>Hours vary at the city’s drop-off locations, which will remain open all winter long. For more information, including a list of acceptable materials, go to <a href="http://minneapolismn.gov/solid-waste/organics/index.htm" target="_blank">minneapolismn.gov/solid-waste/organics</a>.</p>
</div></div></div>Fri, 26 Sep 2014 21:21:36 +0000Dylan Thomas23645 at http://www.journalmpls.comhttp://www.journalmpls.com/news/green-digest/more-organics-drop-off-sites-opening#commentsHennepin County drops request to increase burning at HERChttp://www.journalmpls.com/news-feed/hennepin-county-drops-request-to-increase-burning-at-herc
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<span class="field-slideshow-credit-text">Dylan Thomas</span>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Ben Johnson</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-teaser field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Proposed county resolution requires Minneapolis to implement citywide organics recycling program by year&#039;s end </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>After four years of squabbling with Minneapolis, Hennepin County is dropping its longstanding request to increase the amount of garbage it can burn at the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC).</p>
<p>Instead, the county board has proposed to withhold funds for Minneapolis’ recycling program unless it institutes an organic waste collection service for every residential building containing between one and eight units by Jan. 1, 2015.</p>
<p>At the <a href="http://hennepinmn.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=10&amp;clip_id=2094">Jan. 28 county board meeting</a> Commissioners Peter McLaughlin, Gail Dorfman, Mike Opat and Linda Higgins introduced a co-authored resolution outlining the abrupt change in the county’s recycling strategy.</p>
<p>“It took, frankly, a threat by this board to take away funding from the city of Minneapolis to get them to adopt single sort recycling, which now they all love and embrace and it’s been a grand success, and I think this is an attempt to provide some direction, as is our responsibility, on composting,” said McLaughlin.</p>
<p>The resolution also dictates that county staff must come up with a schedule for implementing an organics collection service for every other city in Hennepin County by April 30, 2014.</p>
<p>Minneapolis city staff seem to like Hennepin County’s plan in theory, but the city was blindsided by the Jan. 1 deadline, which has been deemed unrealistic for a variety of reasons.</p>
<p>“It’s ambitious to think that we can have everything in place by January 2015,” said Ward 2 City Council Member Cam Gordon, who chairs the council’s Health, Environment and Community Engagement Committee. “Overall I think the concepts are good, but I have some concern over the way it was done, that it may create more tension. It could’ve been done in a more graceful and inclusive manner.”</p>
<p>Kellie Kish, Minneapolis’ recycling coordinator, said she first heard about the county’s new organics collection requirement on Jan. 29, the day after the county’s resolution was introduced. When asked if the Jan. 1, 2015 deadline was reasonable, she replied “Not really,” and directed further questions to David Herberholz, director of solid waste and recycling for Minneapolis. Herberholz did not return a request for comment.</p>
<p>One of the major difficulties in rolling out the county-mandated organics collection program is that Minneapolis currently only provides garbage and recycling services to residential buildings that contain between one and four units, so the city would have to increase the number of buildings it picks up from, in addition to expanding its services.</p>
<p>The resolution was a late addition to the Hennepin County board meeting agenda; some of the county commissioners hadn’t seen it until they arrived for the meeting. After McLaughlin read and explained the resolution, Commissioner Jan Callison successfully motioned that the it be moved to the Public Works, Energy and Environment Committee before further action was taken.</p>
<p>It will be discussed in committee at the Feb. 4 county board meeting, and if the resolution passes committee it will stand for final approval at the Feb. 11 meeting.</p>
<p><img src="/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/articles/01/31/2014/hodgesherc.JPG" alt="" width="630" height="470" class="image-large inline_image" /></p>
<p><em>Hodges at a campaign press conference outside of HERC - photo by Sarah McKenzie</em></p>
<p><strong>Moving toward zero waste or importing more garbage?</strong></p>
<p>Higgins pointed out that many of Minneapolis’ new city council members – as well as new Mayor Hodges, who held a press conference in August outside of HERC touting her plan to move Minneapolis to zero waste – are strong supporters of a beefed-up recycling program.</p>
<p>“We think it’s a reasonable timeline. Pretty much all of the new council members openly campaigned on increasing recycling and organics collections, so this is probably fairly high on many of their to-do lists over there,” said Higgins.</p>
<p>Minneapolis has been slowly working toward developing a citywide organics collection program since a pilot program began in Linden Hills in September 2008. Most recently <a href="http://www.minneapolismn.gov/www/groups/public/@publicworks/documents/webcontent/wcms1p-117857.pdf">an organics collection study</a> commissioned by city council was presented to its Transportation and Public Works Committee last October.</p>
<p>Hennepin County has made no indication that it would be willing to reduce burning at HERC. The waste-to-energy facility generates $9 million in annual revenue for the county, and provides enough power for 25,000 homes and enough heat for 1,500 homes and Target Field.</p>
<p>Currently a little under 75 percent of the approximately 365,000 tons of garbage incinerated annually at HERC comes from Minneapolis and <a href="http://www.pca.state.mn.us/index.php/view-document.html?gid=20067">a recent study</a> by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency found that 31 percent of Minnesota’s garbage was comprised of organics.</p>
<p>"I think it’s great [Hennepin County] tabled its request to increase burning at the HERC, but the next step is beginning to reduce the amount of waste burned there,” said Ward 3 City Council Member Jacob Frey, whose district includes HERC.</p>
<p>Hennepin County pegs the annual cost of implementing and running an organics collection program for all of its municipalities at $7 million. To help pay for that cost, the county is asking the state government to cease its practice of diverting funds collected from the Solid Waste Management Tax to the state general fund.</p>
<p>Last year, according to Hennepin County, $21 million from the Solid Waste Management tax made its way into the state’s general fund, while Hennepin County received only $2.8 million for its recycling, waste reduction and organics collection programs.</p>
<p>“It’s been a travesty, frankly, that legislators and governors time and time again have diverted those funds from the purpose that they were for, which was to implement the solid waste goals of the state and give counties and local governments the resources they need,” said McLaughlin. “We’re saying put the money back where it belongs.”</p>
<p>Ben Johnson // 612-436-5088 // <a href="mailto:%20bjohnson@mnpubs.com">bjohnson@mnpubs.com</a> // <a href="https://twitter.com/johnsonbend">@johnsonbend</a></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-video field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p style=" margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block;"> <a title="View Hennepin County HERC/Organics/SCORE resolution on Scribd" href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/203672732/Hennepin-County-HERC-Organics-SCORE-resolution" style="text-decoration: underline;">Hennepin County HERC/Organics/SCORE resolution</a></p><iframe class="scribd_iframe_embed" src="//www.scribd.com/embeds/203672732/content?start_page=1&amp;view_mode=scroll&amp;show_recommendations=true" data-auto-height="false" data-aspect-ratio="undefined" scrolling="no" id="doc_35648" width="100%" height="600" frameborder="0"></iframe></div></div></div>Fri, 31 Jan 2014 16:10:35 +0000Ben Johnson22312 at http://www.journalmpls.comhttp://www.journalmpls.com/news-feed/hennepin-county-drops-request-to-increase-burning-at-herc#comments